Most nonprofits, without realizing it, make a big assumption when
they write their fundraising.

They assume their donors will read the whole
thing. The whole email. The whole letter.

That’s a really unhelpful assumption.

Here’s a heatmap of a 1-page direct mail letter. It shows what a donor’s eyes tend to look at, and in what order it happens:

Click image to see a larger version.

We could spend a lot of time talking about what
this means for your fundraising writing and design. But there’s one main lesson
I want you to take away…

You Have to Earn and Keep a Donor’s Attention

You cannot assume your donor will read the whole
thing.

Well, you can. But you’ll raise a lot less
money.

So first you have to earn your donor’s
attention. That’s having a great teaser on your envelope. Or a catchy subject
line for your email. You need to get good
at those things.

For your mass donor
fundraising to excel, you need to be better at earning attention than you need
to be at describing your organization or your programs.

That might feel like a “sad truth.” But it’s a
really helpful truth if you want to
raise more money and do more good.

How to Earn Donor Attention

There are three main ways to earn donor
attention. You need to make your fundraising:

Interesting to donors. This almost always
means talking about your beneficiaries and your cause more than your
organization and your programs. Remember: your donor first got involved because
of your beneficiaries or cause, not because of your programs.

Emotional. Emotions are what keep
us reading. You want to constantly be using the emotional triggers: Anger,
Exclusivity, Fear, Flattery, Greed, Guilt, Salvation.

“[NAME] Theatre is dedicated to producing high-quality, daring
productions that take on challenging topics.”

vs.

“I’m writing you today about something you care about – and it’s
in danger.”

I can basically guarantee you that more people are going to keep reading the second example. It’s written directly to the donor, it’s about something she cares about; it’s emotional, and it’s dramatic.

The first example – from a real letter from my files – is a classic example of telling the donor something the donor probably already knows and doesn’t really care about.

Note: Arts organizations often say that their fundraising can’t be emotional or dramatic because they don’t have babies or puppies to raise money for. I think the first example above shows that Arts organizations can absolutely be dramatic and emotional in their fundraising – they just need to think about it differently. After all, if a Theatre can’t get dramatic, it’s probably not that great a Theatre!

The Big Lesson

Your donors are moving fast. They don’t read the
whole thing, watch the whole thing, or listen to the whole thing.

You need to get great at getting and keeping their attention. Study it. Know what
your donors care about and then borrow tactics from advertising and social
media to get your donor’s attention. And remember; we have 70 years of
best-practices for earning and keeping donor attention. Smart fundraisers have
learned a LOT over the years. Tap into it!

Because if you can earn your donors’ attention, they are more likely to keep reading.

And if you can keep your donors’ attention, they are more likely to give you a
gift.

Previous Article

Next Article

Instant Appeals & Reports

Want us to create your appeals and newsletters for you? Want your staff to be able to work on other things while a team of professionals - who write and design these things all day every day — makes your appeals and newsletters work better than you thought possible? Here's what we'll take off your plate:

We’ll run a Kickoff meeting for each appeal and newsletter

We’ll write a Creative Brief defining exactly what will be said and how it will be said

We’ll write the letter, newsletter, and email

We’ll design the letter and newsletter. We’ll use your template for emails

We’ll request the mailing list and calculate the gift ask amounts

We’ll get the files ready to go to the printer

You’ll have offloaded 90% of the work – and your fundraising will raise more money!

Fill out the form below to begin the conversation! Or click here to read more.